Mid-term time is midterms time. You know, that special week in the semester when you get to find out—in many courses, for the first time—how you’re really doing. Many students think that the midterm goes on only for the 50 minutes you’re sitting on your butt in the lecture room. But really, there are things you can do in advance of the midterm, during the midterm, and even after the midterm to notably improve your performance. Here are nine of them:

BEFORE:

#1 Get on the stick. Many students start to prepare for the midterm only the very day before (or, in street language, they cram). This is almost never a good idea. A much better strategy is to make it a rule to start studying a week before the midterm is to be given. That way, your ideas will have time to jell (especially important if the midterm is going to have essays), and you’ll have plenty of time to go over any special areas of difficulty or things you didn’t understand.

#2 Go for the gold. Many professors give many hints about what’s going to be on the midterm: Sometimes there are study questions or actual previous exams, sometimes the midterm problems are just variants of homework or quizzes, and sometimes the professor or TA drops hints about “what might be on the exam.” Whatever the case in each of your courses, make use of these golden resources. Professors are lazy beasts and often just recycle, or tweak existing questions.

#3 Give it a trial run. The night before the exam, construct a practice test of the exact length and with the exact kinds of problems you expect to see on the midterm. Then, close the door, turn up the heat, close your books, set your stopwatch, and take your exam under actual test conditions. If you do this, not only will you see how you did, but, when you go into the actual exam room, it won’t be the first time you’re sweating bricks—and so, you’ll know how to time yourself and manage the stress.

DURING:

#4 Start your work right away. Many students piss away the first ten minutes of the test outlining their answers, jotting down code words they might have memorized, or trying out each of the choices in their head before starting to write. But, if you think about it, ten minutes is 20 percent of the test. Better idea? Start doing one of the problems right away, or, if yours is an essay test, getting your first paragraph down (preferably with a thesis sentence) immediately. You’ll thank yourself when the clock runs down and time starts to be a factor.

#5 Be sure to answer exactly the question asked. You might not believe this, but more points are lost at college by not answering what the professor asked than by providing wrong information. Pay particular attention on an essay test to the verbs used in forming the questions: Explain is different from compare and contrast, defend is different from object to, and form a hypothesis is different from prove. And, if there are multiple parts to the question, be sure to devote equal space to answering each of the subparts (except where directed otherwise). The grade might be being equally divided among the parts.

#6 Don’t be a lemming. As you are taking your exam, especially if you’re in a large lecture class, you’ll probably see many students heading for the exits long before the exam is over. Resist the temptation to follow them. It’s always a good idea to stay to the end of the exam, even if you’ve finished your work; there are always problems to go over, essays to reread and perhaps tune up, or short answers to recheck. Even a few mistakes corrected and points gained here or there, can propel your grade from one level to another.

AFTER:

#7 Feed on the feedback. Many students, when they get their tests back, shove them into their backpack (or worse, throw them in the trash), never to read the comments on their essays or the corrections to their problems. Big mistake. The comments or corrections you get back are one of the few times that you get one-to-one feedback from your professor. Don’t waste it—no matter how painful it is to take a peek.

#8 Get some face time. If, after looking over the comments, there are things you don’t understand (as there almost invariably are), take the opportunity to go see the professor or TA and refine your understanding. If you’re a little shy about seeing the professor in person, you might try e-mail or even Skype. In any case, be sure to bring along your exam paper and any specific questions you might have. That way, your meeting will be focused and will be of greatest use to you.

#9 Make some resolutions. Even though it’s not New Year’s, getting-back-your-exam time is a good time to make strategic changes if things aren’t going 100 percent according to plan. There’s still plenty of time left in the semester, and, more important, there’s plenty of percentage left in the grade: usually, there are still ten weeks left in the semester, and, typically, the midterm counts only 30 percent of the grade. So pinpoint your errors (did you not understand some basic concepts? did you miss too many lectures? did you not do all the homeworks or problem sets? or did you simply not study enough?) and resolve to make strategic changes so you’ll do even better on the next test. The good student os the persistent student, and the persistent student doesn’t throw up his or her hands at the midpoint in the course.